Hi all -

I'm currently wrestling with generating XML output from a table that has grown 
to a size where simply using table_to_xml or query_to_xml is no longer feasible 
due to the whole result set getting loaded into memory. I've been getting 
familiar with cursors and the cursor_to_xml command and have two issues that I 
can't seem to figure out:

1) When using cursor_to_xml in a plpgsql function, the FOUND variable does not 
seem to get set, so there is no way to exit a loop that is iterating over the 
cursor. Below is the function code; it loops indefinitely when it is run.

create or replace function getxml() returns setof xml as $$
    declare
        resultxml xml;
        curs refcursor;
    begin
        open curs for select * from groups;
        loop
            select cursor_to_xml(curs,1000, false, false, '') into resultxml;
            return next resultxml;
            exit when not found;
        end loop;
    end;
$$ language plpgsql;


2) Assuming the above issue is fixed, how can I go about ensuring that the 
result set from the function isn't stored in memory until the function 
completes? Ideally, I'd like to write the output to a file with each iteration 
of the cursor, but I know file IO is a big no-no with plpgsql since 
transactions can't manage the state of files being written.

Any insight is most appreciated. Thanks!


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